In answering the following question by socratesloknar, I found myself wanting to expand here in this blog as YouTube allows for only so much room per comment. See video for context:

While I agree that there are more important things to do than to discuss the merits of a greeting or salutation, how does your response align with Gurdjieff’s call for precision﻿ in language? Isn’t Awakening served by being more aware of all aspects of self, including our choice of words and speech?

A relevant question, although, not everything I talk about will find alignment with every aspect of Gurdjieff’s teaching…

Language must serve a purpose. Otherwise, it has no value. The phrase “Hail Satan!” has a purpose. Trying to retro or counterfeit its meaning and usage causes us to focus on the unimportant. Precision for precision’s sake is a mistake. What we require, if we are to make any sort of progress at all, is precision towards Awakening.

As writer, speaker, teacher, Cult leader, and holder of an English degree… few care about artistic and effective communication more than I. You want to talk about clarifying language? Let’s talk about NLP (neuro-linguistic programming). We have the power to direct our physical, emotional, and intellectual selves based on words and their connection to our brain. That means we can shape reality with our speech, with various forms of communication. How great is that?!? It means something else too, something a lot of us overlook… that language is a vehicle, not the destination.

Going beyond mere words, let’s explore the core message. Some points of interest are distraction. Others are rooted in beneficial, substantive change. How do we observe the ineffable on an individual basis? Surely, that is the lesser question compared to the following: Should we observe the ineffable? And if so, why? Those are greater questions because they lead to action appropriate for our circumstances. Action always trumps armchair theorizing. Since I brought it up a moment ago, what are our circumstances? We are self-evolving organisms cut off from Higher Forces.

Acknowledging God(s), the sacred, spirituality, religious beliefs, and so forth is our attempt to get in touch or reconnect with Higher Forces. Does it matter if one person says “Hail Satan!” while another says “Hail Cthulhu!”, “Ave Satanas”, or “The Devil is my co-pilot!” Not really. As I said in the corresponding video, who cares? Who gives a shit? Historical research is fine, but looking for irrelevant things to criticize and complain about like “Hail Satan!” or calling themselves “Reverend Red Pants” is missing the point. At best, it’s wasted energy. At worst, it’s a call to arms on the wrong fucking side of the war!

Instead, let us focus on what is truly important. It begins and ends with Self-Remembering. Observe yourself in various moments and contexts of your day; hopefully while struggling against those aspects of yourself going in a fruitless direction. Sadly, this is the majority of our ‘I’s.

Say what you want, do what you want. At the end of the day, it’s all about Awakening. Or did you want to get into a semantic argument about that as well?

3 Responses to “Linguistic Precision”

Great post, Master. It stirred my mind. I am on crossroads in my life; there are things I can do and can’t do but what I am gonna be doing from now is struggle as hard as I can in order to hack my mind and change the program. That means I will now have to do a lot of things I don’t wanna do… things that have been stacking up in my mind. I always delay, but now I am gonna rise up and fight. I will win!

Surely linguistic precision is paramount, in that we share the same vocabulary base: ‘Hail Satan’ is opposite to’
‘Our Father who art in Heaven’! It makes a nonsense of it otherwise, language is a communicative tool.

Precision is subjective. Language will always be couched in personal preference and other considerations… aesthetics, education, audience, cultural background, outside influence, and intent. Campaigning for or against any phrase is to have missed the point entirely.